CHAPTER 21
Teddy ran blindly. The grainy wind stung his eyes, and the deep sand pulled at his feet. He felt sure the boys were about to catch him, but then he heard Sloot yell from a distance behind him. “Let him go. The desert will send him back. He’ll want to come back.”
Teddy tried to run straight to keep some sense of direction in the blowing dust. He sprinted until his breath came in gasps and his lungs hurt. When he finally felt he was far enough from the tree and the boys, he slowed to a trot so he could think.
Maybe he could circle back to the house. It was how he’d gotten here—through the window.
It has to lead back out, doesn’t it?
As he jogged, the sand gave way to a crunchy surface like gravel, but softer. He still couldn’t see well in the dimness, so he slowed to a walk for fear of running headlong into something solid. He reached into his backpack for the small flashlight he’d packed. It was no 500-watt halogen, and the batteries wouldn’t last forever, but it was better than nothing.
He clicked on the flashlight and shined it ahead—nothing but darkness as far as he could see. At least there were no trees or double-crossing kids. A wave of relief washed over him and for a moment he relaxed, at least until he pointed the light down.
In the bright beam, he could see the ground moving. Teddy gasped—it was an undulating carpet of bugs, all waving oversized pincers and upturned tails.
Scorpions!
He swung the flashlight in a full circle around him, scanning the heaving swarm of poisonous creatures. There were thousands of them, and he’d run directly into their midst. He took a tentative step back, and his heel made a loud crunch. Scorpions skittered away in every direction.
No more than a bee sting, he told himself, trying to stay calm. But what would a thousand stings do to me?
The scorpions were now scuttling across his tennis shoes as the throng closed in again around his motionless feet. At first, Teddy tried to delicately tiptoe into the open spaces between the horrible little creatures. But they kept crawling toward him, flooding the desert floor and filling every gap. So Teddy began to trot again, crunching with every step, high-stepping like a football player running through tires at practice.
His legs pistoned up and down, feet smashing scorpions into bits of shell and white jelly with every step, but they never touched the ground long enough for his tormentors to climb aboard. It was exhausting—he was already tired from fleeing the boys, and he knew he couldn’t stop or the scorpions would swarm over him in an instant.
But because he tried to keep the flashlight pointed straight ahead to see where he was going, he couldn’t look down, and when the ground suddenly dropped away, he toppled into a hole.
